U.S. Scales Back Its Goals for Pacific Economic Meeting : Trade: Asian nations have shied away from a commitment to open markets in region.

Amid growing signs of Asian resistance to proposals for a closely knit Pacific economic community, the Clinton Administration has scaled back its goals for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit shifting into high gear here today.

“The very fact of such a meeting advances the idea of an emerging Pacific community,” a White House official insisted in a briefing in Washington on Tuesday, calling the coming meeting Saturday between President Clinton and major Asian-Pacific heads of state “the beginning of a process.”

Earlier, the Administration had hoped the APEC meeting would formally embrace a commitment to opening markets throughout the region and eventually to creating a Pacific free trade zone. But many countries represented here balk at moving away too quickly from the protectionism that has helped their industries flourish. And U.S. officials made it clear there would be no tough talk in Seattle.

U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor, in remarks delivered to the delegates on closed-circuit television, made only perfunctory references to the virtues of free trade and left out his normal dire warnings about the necessity of opening Asian markets to U.S. goods.

Secretary of State Warren Christopher and other foreign ministers begin meeting today. Christopher, in remarks upon arrival in Seattle on Tuesday afternoon, expressed optimism about congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement and suggested that it could be the beginning of “a triple play” for the Administration: Victory on trade with Mexico and Canada could strengthen the President’s hand here, which in turn could help with talks next month on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

But early indications are that the Administration’s effort to put APEC at the core of its Asia policy could reap few rewards.

Clinton boosted the importance of this loosely associated Asian grouping last spring when he abruptly proposed the meeting of APEC leaders here. And U.S. officials continue to underscore the importance of APEC.

“Both U.S. economic prosperity and global prosperity are linked to the Pacific,” Charlene Barshefsky, deputy U.S. trade representative, said Tuesday, speaking before an APEC Customs symposium. “The United States supports a stronger, more active APEC that will become the forum for regional trade and investment liberalization, policy development . . . throughout the region.”

Barshefsky took the place of Kantor, who remained in Washington to join in last-minute lobbying efforts in support of NAFTA, which would create North America’s own free trade zone. Congress is expected to vote on the agreement today.

However, one sign of the difficulties Clinton faces at the APEC meeting was the fact that a report by the so-called Eminent Persons Group, a panel of academics given the task of setting forth a vision for APEC and backed by the Clinton Administration, is getting the cold shoulder from Japan and many Southeast Asian nations.

The report, which will be formally presented at the ministers’ meeting that begins today, proposes gradual trade liberalization, with the ultimate goal of creating a free trade zone in the region. It sets a 1996 deadline for coming up with a program to liberalize trade in Asia and suggests that a formal system be instituted within APEC for arbitrating trade disputes.

A senior Japanese official said Tuesday that the latter proposal is unnecessary because there is already such a system under GATT. He also expressed reservations about the idea of a free trade zone.

“From our perspective, if you are going to make a free trade area, it would be better to make it global,” said the official. “We don’t want to see a (trade) bloc.”